We pray for
children who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled, who stomp in
puddles and ruin their new pants, who
sneakPopsicles before
supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, who
can never find their
shoes.

And we pray
for those who stare at photographers from behind
barbedwire, who can't bound
in the street in anew pair of sneakers,
who never go to the
circus, who live in an X-rated
world.

We pray for
children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls
of dandelions, who
sleep with the dog and bury the goldfish, who
hug us ina hurry and forget
their lunch money, who cover themselves
with Band-Aids and sing
off key, who squeeze toothpaste all over
the sink, who slurp
their soup.

And we pray for those who
never get dessert, who have no safe
blanket

to drag behind
them, who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to
steal, who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whosemonsters are
real.

We pray for children who
spends all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in
the grocery store and pick at their food, who
like ghosts stories, who
shove dirty clothes under the bed and never
rinse the tub, who get
visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to
be kissed in front of
the carpool, who squirm in church and scream
in the phone, whose
tears we sometimes laugh at, and whose smiles
can make us
cry.

We pray for those whose
nightmares come in the daytime, who will
eat anything, who aren't
spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and
cry themselves to sleep, and
who live and move, but have no
being.

We pray for children who
want to be carried and for those
who must, for those we never
give up on and for those who don't get
a second chance. For those
we smother....and for those who will grab
the hand of anybody kind
enough to offer it.